


Oh, Hell

by starhawk2005



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Gen Fic, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-08
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-13 20:33:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starhawk2005/pseuds/starhawk2005
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean can only track time by how often the demons hit the ‘reset’ button and start over from scratch with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, Hell

At first, Dean is _bored_ , at least after he gets over the initial shock of having died. It’s grey and cloudy and empty. If it weren’t for the chains coming out of his flesh, pinning him in the middle of this strange cage, it wouldn’t even be particularly painful or remarkable. 

He almost wants to laugh. _This_ is Hell? Spending eternity being _bored_? Wow, someone back home really got this whole thing wrong.

But then they come for him, and he finds out the truth. There really is a lake of fire, more than one, in fact. There really are souls (though they look, act, and feel like bodies, here), shrieking endlessly in pain as they are tormented by gleeful demons.

“Welcome to Hell, Dean Winchester,” his head captor says. Dean will find out later that this prick calls himself Alastair. “Shall we have some fun?” the demon lisps into his ear.

That’s when Dean is first acquainted with ‘The Rack’, and the unique sensations of pain that can be produced by being slowly skinned alive…when you can’t faint or die.

That’s when Dean realizes it’s far, far worse than he or anyone topside ever imagined. It’s not even so much the terrible agony, or even the fact that he’s forced to stay conscious and watch every creative way they tear him apart.

No, it’s the fact that they’re going to be doing this to him, over and over, for all eternity. 

He loses all track of time. Hell never changes, there are no sunrises and sunsets. Dean can only track time by how often the demons hit the ‘reset’ button and start over from scratch with him. 

But at some point, maybe months or years after Dean first arrives, Alastair sits down next to Dean, toying with his favourite set of knives, and informs Dean that the torment can stop at any time. All Dean has to do, is join the ranks of the torturers. “You think about it, Dean,” Alastair says, grinning jaggedly. “I’ll just amuse myself while you decide.” He starts slicing the knife across Dean’s belly, giggling to himself.

Dean wants to say yes, oh God, yes, whatever it takes to end this, but he howls through the torment instead, two things stopping him from giving in, at least when the pain subsides long enough to let him think (and that’s often, because Alastair likes to stretch things out as long as _demonly_ possible). One of these things is Ruby’s words echoing in his head, reminding him that all demons were human once, and he’ll bet he can guess how they transitioned from human to damned. 

The other is a mental image of his own face, his eyes filled with demonic blackness, just as he saw it during that dream-walk eons ago.

He tells himself, year after year, that he won’t do it, he won’t give in. He won’t join the ranks of the assholes that killed Mom, and led Dad to sacrifice himself, and that turned Sammy into a potential demon army general.

But eventually, even Dean must break. Eternity is a long time, and finally he realizes he can’t face it, not like this.

So he agrees. Alastair slaps him on the back and hands him his favourite cutting tool, and Dean grinds his teeth together and does as he’s told, trying his best to shut out the shrieks and the anguished faces and the certainty that this is it, that the next time he passes some reflective surface in Hell, he’s going to see a black-eyed version of himself staring back.

There _are_ mirrors in Hell – the better to magnify the awful spectacle of it all – but the few times Dean dares to look in one, his eyes look normal. Once, he’s sure he sees them flash dark and empty for a second, but the next time he dares to look, it all seems normal again. Still, he’s not going anywhere, and he’s sure it’s only a matter of time.

At least until one day (or night, it’s hard to be sure here), Hell suddenly turns blinding white and silent around him, and he feels a new, different kind of pain clutching at his left shoulder, a sensation like someone is trying to stretch him like a Gumby doll…

 

And then everything changes.


End file.
